Prevent Engineering License Checkout Abuse

Introduction to License Checkout Abuse

Engineering software licenses, such as those for CAD (Computer-Aided Design), CAE (Computer-Aided Engineering), EDA (Electronic Design Automation), and PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), are critical yet costly assets, often priced between $1,500 and $100,000 per seat annually. Despite their importance, these licenses are frequently underutilized, with data showing that on a 24/7 basis, most licenses are used only 30% of the time, remaining idle for 70%. During peak hours (e.g., Monday–Friday, 8 AM–5 PM), however, engineers may hoard licenses to ensure availability or check out multiple licenses of the same tool, leading to increased license counts and unnecessary costs.

Floating licenses, slightly akin to books in a library, are shared resources with a fixed number of concurrent checkouts (e.g., 10 licenses allow up to 10 simultaneous users). Overuse or inefficient allocation can result in denials, where engineers are unable to access tools, causing delays and reduced productivity.

This white paper explores how TeamEDA’s License Asset Manager with Usage Monitoring (LAMUM™) helps organizations minimize checkout abuse, optimize license usage, and reduce costs for engineering software.

Visualizing License Usage Patterns

Understanding license usage patterns is essential for optimizing allocation and reducing costs. LAMUM provides powerful visualization tools to identify inefficiencies and inform decision-making:

Checkout Heatmaps: Display 24/7 usage patterns, highlighting peak and low-usage times for each license increment or feature. These vibrant, organized visuals help managers see when licenses are checked out and when they are idle, enabling better scheduling to reduce denials.

Denial Heatmaps: Show the days and times when denials occur, helping engineers plan work during non-peak periods to avoid delays. By sharing these insights with teams, organizations can encourage self-regulation and reduce hoarding.

Usage Trends: Reveal patterns in license demand, allowing managers to adjust allocations based on historical and projected needs. For global companies managing hundreds of licenses (e.g., Ansys, Siemens NX, PTC Creo, or SolidWorks), LAMUM provides visibility into past, current, and future demand, supporting right-sizing for current and upcoming staffing levels (e.g., now, 6 months, and 1 year ahead).

These visualizations, available as exportable reports and images or shareable via a URL, empower management teams to identify issues, such as overuse during peak hours, or determine underutilization at other times, and provide information needed to make data-driven decisions to optimize license inventory.

Optimizing License Utilization with LAMUM

LAMUM provides a comprehensive suite of tools to prevent checkout abuse and maximize license efficiency, particularly for organizations with large CAD, CAE, EDA, or PLM license pools.

Key features include:

Usage Monitoring by Application, Engineer, and Group:

Tracks usage times by application, individual engineers, or groups, sorted by total checkout duration or number of checkouts.

Provides average checkout times and the average number of concurrent users over any specified period.

Identifies instances of hitting maximum capacity to assess license shortages.

Detailed Reports:

User Detail Reports: Show all tools used by a specific engineer in a given time period, including duration and percentage of total usage. This helps identify potential hoarding or multiple concurrent checkouts of the same tool.

Users Report by Tag/Tool: Lists users who accessed a specific tool at a given tag name (license server), with usage details in hours, minutes, seconds, and percentage of total.

Group Detail Reports: Summarize tool usage by group, including duration and percentage of total, supporting chargeback reporting.

Usage Activity Graph: Displays trends in current capacity, peak usage, and average usage by day, enabling restructuring of license allocation if needed.

Zero-Usage Report: Highlights tools or features not used in a specified period, identifying opportunities to eliminate unnecessary licenses for significant savings.

Top 10 Users Charts: Identifies the heaviest users by duration or number of checkouts, helping address overuse or hoarding.

Averages Report: Details all features used in a period, including total usage time, average checkout time, average concurrent users, maximum capacity hits, peak licenses used, max times at peak, and total percentage of use.

License Optimization: Enables analysis of concurrent license needs, licenses per server, and restriction types (e.g., WAN, LAN, node-locked), supporting decisions to shift between license types for cost efficiency.

Having access and visibility to these insights, organizations can reduce denials, eliminate unnecessary licenses, and ensure engineers have access to tools when needed, saving both time and money.

Proactive Alerts for License Management

LAMUM’s automated alerts proactively address checkout abuse and improve license availability:

License Daemon-Down Alert: Notifies administrators via email if a license server or daemon (e.g., FlexLM) goes down, ensuring rapid resolution to restore access.

Capacity Threshold Alert: Alerts when all licenses for a tool are checked out, indicating potential denials and the need for additional licenses.

Long Checkout Alert: Allows setting time limits for checkouts, particularly for expensive or high-demand licenses. If exceeded, administrators receive an email, and an optional warning can be sent to the user to prevent hoarding.

License Available Alert: an alert set by engineers to notify them when a fully utilized license becomes available, reducing manual retries, eliminating, and boosting productivity by allowing focus on other tasks.

Duplicate License Checkout Alert: Flags instances where an engineer holds multiple licenses of the same tool simultaneously, addressing inefficient usage.

Denial Threshold Notification: Alerts when denials for a specific tool or tag exceed a set limit, enabling proactive adjustments.

These alerts, combined with LAMUM’s reporting capabilities, empower organizations to maintain optimal license ratios, minimize costs, and enhance engineer productivity.

About TeamEDA, Inc.

TeamEDA, Inc., headquartered in Derry, NH, is a leader in integrated software licensing management for engineering applications, including CAD, CAE, EDA, and PLM. With its proprietary License Asset Manager with Usage Monitoring (LAMUM™), TeamEDA delivers a best-in-class solution that combines asset management and usage monitoring to prevent checkout abuse, ensure compliance, and reduce costs. TeamEDA’s expertise and innovative tools make it an essential partner for optimizing engineering software investments. Learn more at teameda.com.